Recently I was sewing a quilt. It had a face on it which turned out to be larger than I expected.

I wondered what a REALLY big quilt would look like. Hmmm – if I sewed together pieces of old wool blankets I could make a very large quilt without backing it. And thus the idea for Mr. Big was born.

I put out the call for wool blankets and several kind people gave me some.Thank you Fay Jones, Kate Harkins, Reeta Tollefson, Diane Glenn and Marcia Paschkis! I cut all of the blankets into 12″ squares which my trusty cat Ruby guarded.

Once I knew how many squares were available, I drew up a plan.Each ¼” square would be a 12″ wool piece. I didn’t have a room large enough to lay it out, so I borrowed one from Coyote Central. Once I saw the quilt I took away the two outer rows bringing it down in size to 11′ x 18′. I left the figure intact but rearranged the background several times. After I saw how big it really was I felt overwhelmed and wondered what on earth I was doing. But if I didn’t keep going than I had needlessly destroyed a lot of nice blankets.

So I picked up each row and put it in its own bag. I came home and sewed. The sewing became more cumbersome as the quilt grew. But it was possible! It was even fun; the ridiculousness of the project made it entertaining.The finished blanket was once again too big to spread out in my house, so I took it back to Coyote for a look. I stood on a ladder to photograph it.And then took a rest (photographed by Marybeth Satterlee).In May I will be having a show at the Bitters Barn in La Conner. I hope Mr. Big will fit on a barn wall there. After that I will need to find either a cold giant in need of a blanket, or a giant wall. Hmmm.

Oh, birds. I love to see them, listen to them and draw them. Birds can be real or symbolic.

A bird can be conveyed in a single line, as in this French fabric from 1886.

Or in many lines, as in the Pennsylvania Dutch Fraktur from 1815:

I have a flock of bird images pinned up in my studio for inspiration. Here are a few of them.

Owls by C.F.A. Voysey from England (1897):

Peacock from a 1920’s Japanese Matchbox:

Gluckwunsche from the Wiener Werkstatte:

I put birds in my paintings, fabric and books. These birds were from my first fabric line, Folklorica.I painted these Golden Birds for my sister.And designed a line of fabric called Chickadee.But after the terribly apt Portlandia episode (Put A Bird on It) I felt ashamed of this love. I must be able to think of something else to draw!

Of course I found other subject matter.But birds flew back into paintings -and paper cuts:and onto quilts:

Birds are all around us, real and imaginary.

I think that if you feel like it, you should put a bird on it. Why not?

a rose.In June a friend brought over a big bucket of roses from her garden. There were so many roses that we had more than one bouquet.

The mermaid was made by Lana Sundberg.

The roses were achingly beautiful and they smelled good. But roses fade. Alas.

Luckily roses on fabric can provide timeless pleasure. Here are some patterns to savor.

These 19th century English chintz borders are from the book Textile Designs , an encyclopedia of historic fabrics compiled by Susan Meller and Joost Elffers.

Susan Meller also wrote an amazing book about Russian Textiles . It includes examples of printed fabrics, embroidery, ikats, paisleys and stripes. It shows the cloth and robes made from them. Here are some rose fabrics from that book.

In the variety of Russian fabrics there are so many rich reds: crimson, scarlet, cherry, carmine, rust and maroon.

This Suzani piece was embroidered. The designs were drawn on the cloth, then separated into panels. Various family members would embroider the separate panels which would then be sewn back together. The slight variations in the density of the stitches and the slight flaws in the registration give the piece life.

Roses line this woman’s mulisak from Khiva.Returning to Textile Designs , you can find these roses from France (1922 and 1930):

And this bouquet, made in England for export to Portugal in the mid 1800’s.

Once upon a time, when I was a little girl, my family spent part of each summer at a little cabin called the izbushka. The cabin was part of Russian Village, (also known as Churaevka) a small community of Russian expatriates in Connecticut.This illustration by Feodor Rojankovsky (from Goldilocks) gives the feel of the izbushka. Rojankovsky was also a visitor to the village, although I never met him.

Maybe because of those early experiences at Churaevka I have always loved Russian illustration, light and dark.

Yuri Vasnetsov

Vasilisa by Ivan Bilibin

Last year I designed a new line of fabric for In the Beginning called Kalinka; the fabric is out now. Kalinka is the name of a Russian song and it means little snowfall. I’ve also read that it refers to a sour red berry. The fabric is for winter so it includes snowflakes, a lot of white (and red berries) . Here is the main panel:In the designs I referred back to Russian folk tales like the Firebird and Kolobok, the story of a small bun that doesn’t want to be eaten. This ceramic fox and bun posed for me.I also looked at the leaves and berries in Russian lacquer ware for inspiration.This is my painting for an all-over fabric design, which I called Kalinka Meadow.Here’s how it looks as fabric with a cranberry colored background:Of course Kalinka needed a Matrushka. Here is my painting, and the resulting fabric with additional border stripes :

In Kalinka I barely dipped my toe into the rich river of Russian stories and imagery. I want to go back and paint more.

What to wear? That is the question asked and answered by this paper doll (made by my niece Zoe Paschkis, many years ago.)

Recently I came across an article about Paper Dolls by Francine Kirsch that I had clipped from the magazine Folk Art in 2007. She talked in the article about some paper dolls that were made professionally to show certain styles of clothes, and she also showed these lovely handmade ones.I like the way that every outfit has to confirm to the posture of the model.I like the materials used to make the dresses:As in almost everything, sometimes what is revealed is not what is intended to be revealed. In this paper doll family from 1907 the creator reveals racism: the black doll is made to be somewhere between a child and an adult in size.Some paper outfits are nearly abstract, like these from the blog Accidental Mysteries.Here is a mermaid by Deborah Mersky.Lately I have been making big paper dolls. Here I am with a new friend, made with no tape, glue or staples. One of my goals is to use all of the paper in different parts of the doll. Here are the pieces of a doll called Paper Howdy, cut from one sheet of paper.

Here is what remained from that 12″ x 18″ sheet of paper.

And here is the assembled Paper Howdy.I hope this post will inspire you to make some paper dolls of your own.

The tribes of the Northwest coast made (and still make) button blankets with black and red wool and white buttons. The images and color combinations are bold.

This was made by a member of the Haida tribe in 1900.

In quilts I have only used buttons for eyes. This man, woman and dog were part of my first quilt which I made in a class with Sandy Bonsib. She taught us many traditional patterns, as well as how to design and piece our own imagery, such as this man, woman and dog.

Someday I would like to use LOTS of buttons on a quilt. As inspiration I will look at the Pearly Queens and Kings of England “wiv buttons galore”.